REARING AND FEEDING OF ANIMALS. 357 



coarse form. Heads large, limbs thick, and the rams strong 

 horns. Their fleeces weighed about two and a half pounds; 

 but their bellies were almost destitute of wool. Slow feeders, 

 yet producing good mutton. 



The Dorset breed, so named from their native country, have 

 small horns and white faces. Wool good, of middling fineness, 

 weighing from three to four pounds the fleece and upwards. 

 A class of mountain sheep to be mentioned consists of two re- 

 markable groups, the Dartmoor and Exmoor, which derive 

 their names from the districts they inhabit. These wild little 

 sheep are reared in their native pastures of heath, and fattened 

 in the lower country; but they are gradually disappearing. 



The races of sheep just referred to may be said to be pecu- 

 liar to the mountains, lower moors, and chalky downs. The 

 sheep of the lower country or plains, are usually of a larger 

 size, and more productive of flesh and wool, and they are all 

 destitute of horns. The breeds of this class to be here referred 

 to are the old Lincoln, the Romney-marsh, the Devonshire 

 Notts, the new Leicester, and the Cotswold. 



The old Lincoln was the most remarkable of all the Euro- 

 pean breeds for bearing an enormous fleece of long wool. But 

 few of the ancient heavy stock remain, nearly all having been 

 crossed by the lighter sheep of modern times. These crosses 

 are still weighty, and afford large supplies to the London and 

 other markets, being fed in large numbers on the rich marshes 

 of the Thames and elsewhere. They frequently weigh from 

 fifty to sixty pounds per quarter. The pelt is particularly 

 thick, and the fleece consists of very long combing wool, of a 

 rather coarse quality, but weighing generally from twelve to 

 fourteen pounds on the wethers,* and from eight to ten pounds 

 on the ewes.. 



The Romney-marsh sheep, is the term applied to a race of 

 heavy sheep, kept from time immemorial on Romney-marsh, 

 an extensive tract of land recovered from the sea in a very early 

 period of English history. The sheep of this rich tract are 

 large, yielding a heavy fleece of long wool. They were highly 

 valued, and until within a few years, have undergone few or 

 no changes. They are not generally esteemed at the present 

 day. 



The Devonshire polled sheep form two distinct varieties of 



* Mr. CLARK, of Cauwick, in 1827, exhibited two wether sheep in Lincoln 

 market, the fleeces of which had yielded twenty-four pounds of wool each. 

 Theywere slaughtered the carcass of the larger oneweighed twohundredand 

 sixty-one pounds the fore-quarters were each of them seventy-three pounds, 

 and the hmd quarters fifty-seven and a half. On the top of the rib the solid 

 fat measured nine inches in thickness. The weight of the smaller one was 

 two hundred and fifty pounds. British Farmer's Magazine, May, 1827. 



